Tried to fix immobiliser today but turns out it's f&*cked anyway. So just removed it all and cleaned up the wiring under the dash. All connections soldered and heat-shrinked instead of twisted wires and tape.

My new valve cover gasket and CAS o-ring seem to be doing their jobs and no leak so far. But car still going into chewyryce's work for a full checkup tomorrow.

Trying to clean up the engine bay, I removed the charcoal canister and it's associated solenoid. This throws out an error code through the diagnostic mode because it detects that the solenoid is missing/damaged. I measured the resistance of the solenoid as 25ohms, so I put a 24ohm resistor across the connector and error code is gone. I keep my car garaged and I haven't had any fuel fumes yet so we'll see how I'll go. But the charcoal cannister is going back in if any fuel vapour builds up.

Originally Posted by Stoogey

Jelly of your horns...

Let me know how you go about fitting and hooking those up.

I can fart louder then my standard na horn...

Definitely go find yourself some of these horns, you need two of them STAT!

They just mount to the standard location, and wiring for both horns should already be there. All you have to do is wire up a ground to the chassis.

I'm a bit OCD when it comes to wiring, I like everything to be neat and tidy. That means all wires bundled together, all connections soldered and heatshrinked. So every time I get a new car, I go through all the wiring to make sure everything was done right. Unfortunately, this is never the case...

While cleaning up the engine bay wiring, I found something really strange. Check out the photos below:

Had to do some intense detective work to figure this out. Turns out it's a 1.5kOhm resitor that is in series with the coolant temp sensor for the ECU. This temp sensor's function is tell the ECU when to use the cold map (rich fuel mixture), this resistor in series tricks the ECU into thinking that the engine is actually cold.

In parralel with the resitor is a thermoswitch which closes when temperature rises to a specific point (not sure what temp though), this then shorts out the resistor and everything is back to normal so the ECU now thinks that the engine is warm.

I believe whoever did this wanted the engine to run on the cold map for longer because of Mazda's stupid coolant routing desing. This design flaw causes the rear of the engine to be hotter then the front. Meaning that the coolant temp sensor at the rear of the engine is reading warm when the engine is actually still a bit cold.

Although the mod works, there is no reason to have it. After removing all that junk, the car runs normal and no longer runs rich. So confused why they did this.... so silly!

Not too sure yet, going to see how it goes on the track first I think. And not sure how fiddly it's going to be installing a reroute with the engine still inside the car.

BTW, I think I saw in your thread that you replaced the upper/lower shift boot? How much did the boots set you back?

Nah, havnt replaced them yet. Just inspected them...and they are both broken lol, lets alot of heat into the console area...

Was planning on getting a set from mania, but will give mazda a ring first to see how much they want for them.

Mania prices are

Upper Boot $40.45
Lower Boot $46.75

So they'd be around there. Havn't had a look to see how much they are online overseas yet.

What hoses did you replace your old ones with, and how much? My radiator has gone brown at the caps so it will need replacing soon (whenever i can afford it), will replace with new hoses too while im at it.

Nah, havnt replaced them yet. Just inspected them...and they are both broken lol, lets alot of heat into the console area...

Was planning on getting a set from mania, but will give mazda a ring first to see how much they want for them.

Mania prices are

Upper Boot $40.45
Lower Boot $46.75

So they'd be around there. Havn't had a look to see how much they are online overseas yet.

What hoses did you replace your old ones with, and how much? My radiator has gone brown at the caps so it will need replacing soon (whenever i can afford it), will replace with new hoses too while im at it.

Those prices aren't too bad I suppose, prices from the US are about $30USD each plus shippging costs on top.

Nearly every water hose was replaced, except for the hoses going into the heater core. Also replaced the metal bypass pipe that goes from the radiator bottom hose to the block. Mine was in pretty bad shape. Most of parts were genuine Mazda but got them at trade prices, so not soo bad.